For the third time this week, the Haberdashers were quarreling about some insignificant issue such as the trash, the laundry or the filthy dishes. Anything to avoid addressing the real issue at hand -- they were miserable, stuck in a loveless marriage.

"Fenton."

Mr. Haberdasher had been aware of his wife's philandering for two years now, and she had been cheating on him for almost ten. He continued the charade of being unaware of the truth, hoping that he could sniff out the weasel with whom she was secretly meeting -- among other things -- while he was at work.

While he was thinking about his beautiful supervisor and how her marriage, like most those days including his, was failing, too.

"Fenton?"

The sound of shattering glassware -- a hauntingly familiar sound from Fenton's own childhood -- meant that the current excuse for a fight was a sink full of dirty dishes. The remainder of the fight would go unheard, though, as the television in the adjoining room grew louder to cover it up. This, too, was typical. Typical of their neighbor's arguments, and again, reminiscent of his childhood.

"Fenton!"

"You know, M'ma, between our noisy neighbors and your noisy soap operas, it's no wonder I can't concentrate!"

From her usual roost parked on a halfway collapsed sofa in front of the trailer's sole television, Kathleen Crackshell snorted at her son.

"And ever since you quit your job at the bean factory and started acting like Gizmoquack --"

"Gizmoduck, M'ma!!!"

"-- you've shown nothing but initiative."

Fenton eagerly stuck his head out the door of his tiny room, his earlier expression of annoyance replaced with childlike giddiness. "Do you really think so?"

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